Dust to Dust
by WriterKos
Summary: Something is wrong but no one seems to notice. Does anybody even care?    Written for the sickness and addictions NFA Challenge
1. As water rusts iron, so is man consumed

_**Title: Dust to Dust  
Characters: Jimmy, Ducky, team, mostly Jimmy.  
Genre: Character Study, Angst, Drama.  
Rating: FR15.  
Plot: Something is wrong but no one seems to notice. Does anybody even care?**_

_**Written for the sickness and addictions NFA Challenge  
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_**Disclaimer: Set sometime on Season 7. No copyright infringement intended. Not making any money out of it. Etc Etc.**_

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_**"Man is harder than iron, stronger than stone and more fragile than a rose."- Turkish Proverb**_

_**Chapter 1: As water rusts iron, so is man consumed by time  
**_  
Life flows in moments, not in years, as the highs and lows of our existence accumulate one after the other, forcing us to blindly seek something just beyond our grasp. Our incessant struggles to achieve something - what? I have no idea... - are rarely noticed by others, as all those around us are also in the same rat race, running, running, but never arriving anywhere.

I observe the struggles, joys and battles of the agents around me, as they tirelessly fight to bring justice to those who have been wronged. Their battles are not easy, as each one of them carry their own burdens and scars from previous battles, juggling their lives precariously over a very thin line which separates hope from despair.

Yet, as I put yet another body of a another dead petty officer onto the morgue drawer, after Dr. Mallard had finished his work on it and I have the chance of study the sightless eyes staring accusingly towards the heavens, I valiantly try not to think about what that young healthy man must have thought as he had to face his own mortality.

I've been thinking about it a lot lately.

My mortality.

The fragility of life before death.

Everybody dies. It just happens that some people die sooner than others. Others die by somebody else's hands, their lives cropped at the height of their vigor.

Others linger for days, months, sometimes even years before the Ripper comes to finally make a visit.

I think I've been hanging around Dr. Mallard for too long. I'm sounding like him already.

I've really started to notice that something was wrong when one night, approximately two months ago, I woke up really thirsty and went to get a bottle of water in my fridge. For some unknown reason, I had to support myself against the wall to wait for the dizziness to pass as soon as I stood up from my bed. Once the black dots stopped dancing in front of my eyes, I walked slowly towards my fridge, opened it and took a bottle from inside of it. However, I froze when I stared at my hand, holding the bottle of water. It was shaking as if I had just ran a marathon, or as if I was a patient in a very advanced stage of Parkinson's disease and, regardless of how much effort I put into it, I couldn't stop its shaking.

As I stared the bottle, the water inside shaking as if going through an earthquake, my mind was inundated with fear as thousand possible diagnostics run through my head, the vivid images of my medicine books jumping before my eyes, increasing even more my panic.

I have carefully watched my food intake, my sugar levels and my frequent insulin shots, as I have lived with diabetes during most of my teenage years and I have been very careful during my short adult life, but I can't help the feeling of panic of this being something different.

Something more serious than a simple imbalance in my sugar levels, something which could radically change my life.

And thus started my long road to discovery.

Of what? I really have no idea.

- TBC -


	2. Signs of drowning

**_It is the calm and silent water that drowns a man. - Ghanaian Proverb_**

**_Chapter 2: Signs of drowning_**

"Hey, man, are you going through puberty again?"

Jimmy looks up startled from the dead petty officer, as DiNozzo's voice sounds just inches to his left ear.

"What? Why are you asking me that?"

"Maybe it's because of the oily pimples sprouting on your face, Jimmy," says Ziva, pointing to her own cheek.

Jimmy lifts his gloved hand and almost touches his face, before he remembers where it has been and refrains touching his own skin. He glances at the dead petty officer, his viscera leaking on the floor and currently smearing his bloodied hands.

"Ah, I'll check it later." He frowns and keeps packing the dead officer in a body bag, trying to resist the itch to immediately rush to the morgue van and check his face in the rearview mirror.

Another symptom to tell his doctor later. Damn.

"Mr. Palmer, are you finished with our petty officer?"

"Almost done, Dr. Mallard." He pushes the body over the stretcher, fixes all the belts over the body back and slowly pushes it towards the morgue van, staring at the van but his mind far away, reviewing his medical books, trying to find a match between his symptoms and the various possible diagnostics.

Both medical examiner and assistant hop into the car, but Jimmy doesn't turn it on, staring straight ahead deep in thought as his mind keeps churning in worry. His distraction is not ignored by the good doctor, who looks at his young protégée with concern, as someone or something is deeply worrying the young boy.

"Is there something on your mind, Mr. Palmer?"

That startles Jimmy, who immediately glances at Ducky and shakes his head vigorously, trying to dismiss his worries with a little small smile, but only achieving the opposite effect.

"Nah, I'm just haven't been sleeping well. That's all."

Jimmy starts the ignition, and as the van starts moving Jimmy's smile slips away as he dives again in his thoughts, and he feels a faint churning in his gut as the worries keeps piling and piling.

Maybe they are right. Doctors are, indeed, the worst patients. Probably because they dread hearing what they think they might hear when they go see another doctor…

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"Dr. Mallard asked me to bring these samples to you, Abby," says Jimmy as he enters Abby's Lab, noticing the fingerprint search in AFIS running in her computer and the constant electric buzzing of the electrical equipment that seemed to permeate Abby's corner, just covered by her current rock band – are they singing in German?

"Thanks Jimmy," she takes his evidence log and signs on the required lines, noticing briefly how pale he looks but dismissing it as just a trick of the fluorescent lights in her lab. "Has Ducky finished his autopsy on Petty Officer Norton?"

"Yeah, he just wants you to run these samples for him, as we found some human tissue under Petty Officer Norton's nails. Maybe you can find a DNA match." Jimmy gingerly touches some electronic board on Abby's work desk, just to have his hand slapped away by the Goth woman.

"Do not touch it! That's a highly sensitive computer board that I'm trying to recover data from." She grabs it in her gloved hands and deposits it away from curious fingers, "now, go as I have much to do and Gibbs will be down here shortly."

"Ah… yeah…. I'm leaving…" with a wounded and scared expression on his face, Jimmy leaves the lab as if the hounds of hell are after him, which gives just a little pang of regret in Abby's chest. But she shrugs it away, as that's Jimmy, he's used on being the underdog of the intrepid Gibbs' team.

He's going to bounce back.

He always does.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Gibbs comes downstairs to talk to Ducky, to request further info on the findings of Norton's autopsy, but finds only Jimmy polishing the autopsy tools, carefully rubbing a cloth over them and putting them back in their respective drawers.

"Where's Ducky?" Gibbs asks, startling Jimmy from his task.

"Ah," Jimmy looks with big round eyes to Gibbs, and his mind falters a little before he connects the person, the question and the needed answer… "ah… Agent Gibbs, you are here… ah… Ducky is not... and…" Gibbs approaches Jimmy and notices how nervous the young man becomes at each step he takes towards the young assistant. He stops only when he's right in front of Jimmy, toe-to-toe, staring down into his blue eyes, while his stammering becomes even more pronounced.

"Ducky… isn't…"

"I know Ducky isn't here. I want to know where he is."

"Ah… Lunch. He had a lunch appointment with Dr. Jordan. He left …" Jimmy glances at the clock on the wall, and gulps before answering the silent question in the cold blue eyes piercing at him, "twenty minutes ago."

"Any idea what time he will be back?"

"Ah… no… he didn't tell me. At least I don't think he did… you see he… left…" Jimmy watches Gibbs marching out the autopsy, the door hissing behind his back as he is already dialing someone on his cell phone.

"He will be back!" Jimmy shouts, but Gibbs is no where to be seen.

Breathing deeply, trying to calm himself, he runs one of his hands through his black hair, and when he lowers them to put away the other tools he freezes, as he notices several strands of hair in his hand, along with whitish dots.

Great, now he's loosing hair and he's having dandruff. He feels a twist in his stomach, which is empty as he hasn't gone for lunch yet, but he's afraid to eat as his bowels seem to have started a small revolution. He feels another pang, and drops carelessly the last tools on the drawer and runs to the bathroom, feeling like he's on a marathon and he might not reach it in time before…

Ahh… thank God. It must have been the Chinese food he ate last night.


	3. Let it rain

**_Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water - Christopher Morley_**

**_Chapter 3: Let it rain_**

It's with trepidation that I approach the waiting area of the clinic, walking towards the receptionist desk who is typing away what I think might be patient's records into the computer.

"Ah.." she ignore me, "hello," I try again, and this time she looks up at me and smiles.

"How can I help you?"

"I have an appointment for 2 pm with Dr. Wilson," I say, and she smiles a bright fake smile and checks the doctor's appointment calendar.

"Mr. James Palmer, correct?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Please, fill out these forms with your insurance information, contact phone numbers and next of kin, and once you are done come back to me, ok?"

She hands me a bunch of forms, standard insurance paperwork, and I walk to one of the comfortable sofas and start filling them out with the questions that they already know the answer, but they want us to fill out form after form just to pass the time as the doctor is God knows where.  
Name, check.

Address, check.

Telephone, check.

Am I currently taking any medication? Ah… I start scribbling my medicines and the insulin shots I take as a routine.

Am I allergic to something? Gosh, almost everything on the face of the earth, the list is ridiculously long.

Am I sexually active? Why the hell do they want to know that?

What are my symptoms… Ah these are important, so I scribble everything I've had noticed so far, since my dizzy spell a couple of months ago.

I keep answering stupid question after stupid question, until I reach the end of the form. I leave my comfortable sofa and give the form to the receptionist – her name tag loudly announces she's Valerie – and she points me to yet another waiting room, this one with two other lost souls sitting, way far from each other, staring listlessly at the TV which is showing American Idol.

I look around, and pick an unused corner of the room, equidistant from both other patients. I don't know why they are here, but whatever it is, I don't want to catch it. I think there's an unspoken rule of the proper behavior in your doctor's waiting room.

Sit apart from others.

Don't cough.

If you cough, don't spread your germs.

Don't infect others with whatever you have.

Whatever, duh.

I open an old issue of National Geographical magazine, and starts reading about the fascinating techniques of embalming used by the Ancient Egyptians. Even then, thousands of years ago, they were terrified of death, so they applied all their knowledge into figuring out ways of preserving the body for the eternal afterlife. They were so advanced on that up until today, these mummies are living testimonies of the way of life of their beliefs.

I close the magazine and let my mind wonder, looking at the two other patients in the waiting room, and I can't help the curiosity about the reasons why they are here. The short bald man with a blue polo shirt and jeans was nervously leafing through a house decoration magazine, but I knew he wasn't reading anything on it because the magazine was upside down. He would sometimes glance nervously at me and at the other man in the room, then lower his gray eyes to the magazine and frown, his mind miles away as he stared at it.

The other one puzzled me a bit, as he was simply sitting there, not reading or watching the TV. His clothes bespoke of money, his watch, if that's a real thing not a fake, it probably was worth much more than my whole annual salary. His modern haircut was carefully messy, the type that you achieve only going to a very expensive hairdresser, and his face seemed like one you expect to see in Hollywood; square jaw, arched eyebrows and deep eyes, surrounded by lines that were a silent testimony of laughter sometime in his life.

Yet, here is he, in the waiting room of a private hospital, probably wondering how did he get here …

A woman a loose ponytail and a white lab coat comes from the corridor with a patient chart in her hand, and looks around the waiting area, "Mr. John Goodman," the mousy short man stands, and follows her into one of the inner sanctums, to lay his life and his future before her to figure out what's wrong with him.

Mr. Hollywood glances briefly at me, and our eyes meet; I see in them the same terror and despair I know he must have read in mine.

"Mr. Isaac Rosentraub," during our brief silent communication, another nurse, this one with short cropped hair and an oval face, very young and beautiful, calls out his name.

He silently nods at me, saluting me, and follows the nurse into another room.

The second man leaves as well, leaving me alone with my thoughts and my worries. Today is Saturday, one of the few the team hasn't been on call and that no dead bodies of petty officers sprung earth like Venus from the foaming of Zeus…

Gosh, I really have to stop paying attention to Dr. Mallard's stories… but they are so entertaining, and he has led such a long full life… one that I fear I might not have the opportunity to live.

"Mr. James Palmer," a deep tenor voice calls out, and I'm taken out my reverie by a tall white haired man, skinny and with long arms, almost all the way down, who is looking at me with a gentle expression on his face. "Mr. James Palmer?"

Are you talking to me? Of course he's talking to you, moron, there's no one else here.

"Yes, Dr. …"

"Herman Gruber, are you Mr. Palmer?"

"Yes,"

"Please follow me."

I stand on shaky legs, throw the Nat Geo Magazine aside and follow the good doctor into his office. It's neatly packed with shelves heavy with several awards and books, punctuated here and there with photos of the doctor with a beautiful middle aged blonde, and two other pictures of twins smiling with identical tooth gaps at the camera.

"Well, Mr. Palmer, you came to me by indication of Dr. Dela Volpi." He points to one of the chairs before his massive dark wood mahogany table, and I feel myself pressing down on the soft cushion, the comfortable leather hugging me like nymphs arms.

"Yes, after the battery of exams I was submitted and no possible diagnosis found, he decided that I needed a more in depth examination."

"I see."

He makes a show of reading through the patient charts, "do you have the copy of your exams with you here?"

"Yes," I hand him the copies I have, and he stays some minutes reading page by page of the exams I've been submitted to during the last month, and which had given no inkling of what I have.

I start looking at the shelves again, observing the artful way he organized his shelves.

Books. _Picture_. _**Award**_.

_Picture_. _**Award**_. Books.

**_Award_**. Books. _Pictures_.

Aesthetically pleasant, but I wonder if it was his wife or a professional decorator who did that. Or maybe someone else, maybe he has a lover. One of the other nurses or one of the other doctors? But they are several years younger than him. What if…

"Uhm…" his pensive murmur cuts my thoughts, and I start to panic. Again.

"Doctor?"

"I see here that they haven't requested an MRI."

"MRI? Is that really necessary?"

"What can you tell me of your symptoms, Mr. Palmer."

Ah…. Uhm…

"I've been feeling very under the weather lately… Sometimes I'll feel my arms shaking and I can visibly see how hard the tremors are. I'm also been having problem with my food intake – which is carefully controlled anyway as I have diabetes – but I'm not hungry, at least not as I used to be, and when I eat it either hurts in my stomach, or it makes a second appearance… either if its coming up or down it depends…"

"So you are having diarrhea too."

I grimace, but it's an important symptom. "It happened three times in the last fifteen days."

"You've also lost weight."

"Yeah. As I told you, I'm not eating as I'm used to, and whenever I eat I'm having problems keeping it down."

"Anything worth of notice?"

"At night, I've been coughing. A lot. But I went twice to the doctors and they've checked my lungs and my head. There's nothing there and my sinus is clear."

"How would you define a lot?"

"Ah… to cough enough that you end up with a chest pain from the effort of coughing continuously and a little bit breathless. I even once called 911 as I was afraid I was having a heart attack, but the paramedics took me to the hospital, kept me for two or three hours doing inhalations and the coughing fit stopped once I was at the hospital."

"Do you have allergies? Any chance of it being an allergic reaction?"

"Yes, I do and no, I don't think it's an allergic reaction."

"Do you have any pets? Cats, dogs, birds."

"No pets, my building does not allow them."

"Carpets or old curtains."

"I live in a small apartment and I'm allergic to dust. No carpets or curtains."

He marks another item in his chart.

And so went on our ping pong of questions for more than three hours, while every single aspect of my life was investigated, torn apart and turned upside down trying to figure out what was making me cough like a man condemned to death by tuberculosis and the tremors, acne and …

"How is your sex life?"

"I beg your pardon?" I ask with all dignity I can muster.

"I've asked how is—"

"I've heard you the first time. I just don't understand what my sex life has to do with my puking and having diarrhea."

"It's just a question. I have to make a good background history about you to find out what might be causing this."

"Ah… well. .. I don't… I currently don't have one?" I see the doctor looking at me waiting to elaborate on that, so I stutter my way out of it, "I used to… but… you see, I had a girlfriend who… well… ex-girlfriend, she… She died. She was shot. She wasn't my girlfriend anymore when she was shot, but still … ah… just because we weren't together together it doesn't mean I … didn't love her but then she died and I couldn't talk to her and… so… well. There was nobody else after her."

I finish my heartbroken tale about my relationship with Michele and I notice that there is some kindness in the doctor's eyes when he looks at me, "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Yeah, I'm sorry too."

"So there's been no one… since…"

"No."

"No picking up girls at bars, going to dance clubs…"

"No."

"No-"

"No. My job is very demanding. And I'm also finishing my studies, I have no time for picking girls at clubs."

"Is your condition interfering with your job?"

"A little. You see, as I've said, I have a demanding job… ahh not really demanding, but I work surrounded by demanding people who need answers ready and fast which, in turn, makes my job demanding too. So I need to be in my top form, and if I'm not in top form, I can't work. If I can't work, I don't know what I'm going to do."

"I see." He scribbles something in his papers.

"You do."

"Sure. If I may ask, what do you do for a living?"

"Ah… I'm the assistant for a Medical Examiner. I work at a Morgue."

I see the surprise blossoming at the doctor's face at my information.

"Really? And do you enjoy working there?"

"Yes, it's fascinating. I get to see and learn several things that I wouldn't ever be taught in Med School. After all, that's real life, while Med School is… well a school. Anyway, we once had this case when …"

"I don't need to know that." The doctor interrupts me, and I blush deeply as I notice that I've just started rambling as Ducky.

He keeps writing on my chart, and I notice that I'm moving my right foot in a nervous tick, up and down, up and down. I also start scratching an itch in my left hand, in my palm, which has been irritating me for a while.

"Ok, we're going to do the following," he hands me papers signed by him in an unreadable handwriting, "we're going to do a battery of tests, an MRI included, just to check the condition of your sinus and to ensure certain diagnostics are out of our list of possible findings." He notices my scratching, and points to it, "Care to tell me about it?"

"Ah, it's nothing. Probably reaction to one of the many chemicals used in autopsy."

He leans over the desk, and stretches his arms, silently asking me to show him my hands. I oblige, and he studies the skin of my hands, looking at the palms, between the fingers and going up my arms.

"Have you noticed any changes in your skin lately?"

"Ah… it's a little bit dryer and rougher, breaking easily, but as I told you, we work with very heavy chemicals at autopsy, it could be a natural reaction of the skin towards them."

"Uhm… either way, I would like you to go to a dermatologist, have yourself checked out." He writes another prescription to me, and hands me the paper with his signature.

"Now, I want you to keep a journal, of everything you eat or get in contact with, that might be causing your reaction… because I'm not sure yet, but the coughing might or might not be related with the digestive problem, but if the lungs and the sinus are totally clear it might be a reaction towards something in the environment you are living and working. What is it? I don't know yet. Let's make some tests, you do the diary for me and we meet again lets see…" he looks at his computer, "next week is ok for you?"

"Initially yes, but I never know when they might need us, or if they might request our presence but… okay, just sign me in and I'll do my best to be here."

He stands up, signaling that my time is up. "It was a pleasure, Mr. Palmer, and I hope to find soon the answer you seek."

"Thanks, Dr. Gruber." We shake hands, and for the first time in weeks there's a faint hope in my heart that we might find an answer for this mystery that is cutting my sleep short, making me cough like a desperate man and it's messing up with my digestive patterns.

Unfortunately, there was a murder and we had to work on the next weekend. And on the following weekend too. I was able to finally reschedule my appointment for the following month.  
And after doing all the tests, the MRIs, new blood tests, scrubbing my apartment clean from top to bottom, etc, I was still feeling run over four months after my first appointment with Dr. Gruber.


	4. Don't fight your urges They usually win

**_Chapter 4: Don't fight your urges. They usually win_**

**_Always in motion is the future. -YODA, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back_**

"Mr. Palmer, would you please bring the stretcher here? We need to move Petty Officer Rizza to the van."

I nod and leave Dr. Mallard finishing to zip the body bag, while I rush to the van to get the stretcher. As I walk towards the van, I feel a faint scratching on the back of my throat, sure sign that I'm going to start coughing, but I try to repress the urge, as the last time I started coughing, I had to sit down on the floor as I became breathless and my legs failed from under me.  
And I really refuse to tumble down while in the middle of a crime scene.

I hold back the urge, and unload the stretcher and guide it towards the ditch by the road where Petty Officer Michael Morgan Rizza had met his maker. As I approach the spot where they are all gathered, the urge comes back full force, and I stop for a moment as I bow to it and coughs start raking my body.

"Hey Palmer, we don't have all day," Tony shouts in order to be heard over my coughs. I wave at him, silently asking for a second. But a second becomes a minute, and a minute becomes several minutes, and I start to shake and shiver as bile rises up and my coughing doesn't show any signs of easing out.

As stars start shining behind my eyelids and my chest starts to ache from the force I'm coughing non stop, I feel a sure hand supporting my back and vague voices sounding somewhere on my left. The ache becomes more pronounced, as my heart struggles vainly to force the blood to keep pumping, but I can literally feel my lungs struggling to absorb the much needed oxygen I need, but for some reason, I can't breathe.

I can't breathe.

Firm hands hold me when my legs fold, unable to sustain my body weight, and the last thing I see before darkness engulfs me are concerned blue eyes staring down at me, surrounded by several blurred heads making a small circle on my vision field. Then I saw no more.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Gibbs is standing by Ducky when he orders Jimmy bring the stretcher. He frowns when the boy - it's hard to consider him a man - sighs wearily and stands up to go to the van. He notices the slight gray color the boy's skin, and how he is sweating even though it is a cool autumn day, with a slight breeze bringing the chill factor even lower.

The boy walks in hurried steps towards the van, and Gibbs turns his attention back to the bickering between Tony and Ziva, and the incessant spouting of stories by Ducky and McGee's technobabble.

However, the sound of coughing draws his attention away from his agents' bickering. He looks back at Jimmy who leans forward, one of his hands supported against the stretcher, as his body is racked by deep chest coughs that really sound painful.

DiNozzo says something idiotic, just to hide his concern as Jimmy leans even more and waves at him, asking for a time until he gets his breath back. Unfortunately, he doesn't get his breath back. And the more he coughs, the more he shakes and Ducky finally stands up and hurries towards his protégé's side, but Gibbs is faster, and he is by Jimmy's side in two seconds, as his legs fail him and Jimmy falls to the floor.

"Get me an ambulance!" Gibbs shouts, as he notices Jimmy's panicked eyes fixing onto his for a second before they roll in their orbs and he faints. He carefully holds Jimmy's head in his callused hands as Ducky immediately starts checking him out, unbuttoning his shirt and taking his vitals.  
"Oh, my dear boy," Ducky says as he notices the faint sheen of sweat all over Jimmy, and how his struggle to breathe hasn't ceased yet, despite the fact he is already unconscious.

"What's wrong with him?" Ziva asks, concern expressed as she looks at the fallen colleague.

"I have no idea, but I intend to find out."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The arrival of the EMTs was a relief, as they immediately put Jimmy in much needed oxygen, and his purple colored lips improved slightly, but he didn't regain consciousness. Ducky was torn between the will of following the ambulance and his duty towards the Dead Petty officer, but Gibbs solved it with a few words.

"Go with him, Ziva will drive the van back to NCIS and I'll talk to Vance requesting another M.E"

"Thank you, Jethro."

Ducky ran after the EMTs, hopped into the back and left with his assistant, leaving Gibbs and his team behind, worried about one of their own. However, there was a body to transport, and a murder to investigate.

"Tony, McGee, move the body to the stretcher and load it into the morgue van. Ziva, get behind the wheels and drive back to headquarters."

"Why Ziva, Boss? Is it wise to put her behind the wheel of the morgue van?" asks McGee, just to receive a glare from the Israeli and a headslap from Tony.

"Why are you worried, McGee? He's already dead. He won't feel nauseous with Ziva's driving."

Gibbs walks away with a small smirk, which disappears as soon as he turns his back to his agents and thinks about how pale Jimmy looked. Whatever it is, it might be more serious than they have imagined.


	5. Doctors and Nurses

**_Chapter 5: Doctors and Nurses_**

The doors burst open for the emergency room of the Bethesda Hospital, and the EMT doctors rushed pushing the stretcher towards the reception area. The young man was conscious, but having difficulty to breathe, so a nurse was holding an oxygen mask over his mouth.

A very worried man in a trench coat and a bow tie followed the young man's stretcher, and watched from a few feet the developments when Dr. Ryan came to check on his new patient.

"What do you have here, Nurse Owens?"

The nurse keeps taking the vitals and writing down in a chart, as another tries to make the young man more comfortable, unbuttoning his shirt despite his vain attempts of modesty batting away the intrusive hands on him.

"Male mid twenties, fainted for no apparent reason, has recovered consciousness on the way to the ER. He's complaining of irritating cough, chest pain, weakness on limbs."

"Please have the assistant nurse make a full blood works, okay? His name?"

"Mr. Palmer," the man in the bow tie says in a loud voice, in order to be heard over the cacophony of nurses and doctors running around in the ER. Dr. Ryan glances up from his patient and studies the intruder in his ER.

"Are you with him?"

"Yes." Dr. Ryan can see how the old man almost shrinks under the weight of his worry, "he's my assistant. I'm Dr. Mallard, from NCIS. I've constantly worked with the doctors here."

The old man points vaguely around the ER, but his sad eyes don't leave the young man struggling to breathe.

"It's hard when it's one of our own," Dr. Ryan runs a hand over the wet hair of the young man, "Mr. Palmer, listen to me."

Two scared blue eyes looked at him, and Dr. Ryan started to explain his next steps to him, not only as a courtesy but also as to calm him down: As a doctor's assistant, the young man was staring at everyone with wide eyes trying to figure out what they were injecting on him.

The nurse informed that his blood pressure was too high, along with his fever that was spiking, so the doctor had to choose what to treat first. He chose to treat the fever first and then start to investigate the source of the respiratory distress. And then Dr. Ryan starts his usual background check in order to figure out what is wrong with his patient.

NCIS NCIS NCIS

A few hours later, once Gibbs is able to get away from the case, Gibbs goes to to Bethesda and finds Ducky sitting with a small cold cup of coffee in his hands, as he sits forlornly at the waiting area of the ER.

"Hey, Duck," He approaches his friend and sits by his side, stretching his long legs before him and waiting for his longtime friend to speak.

"Jethro, have you spoken to the director? Has he found another M.E. for your petty officer?"

Gibbs smirks and leans his head to the side, "Don't worry about that. I'll deal with the director. Any news?" He points with his chin to the closed door leading to the E.R.

Ducky sighs out and stands up, walking towards the trash can where he lets the paper cup with the now cold coffee fall in.

"How did I miss it, Jethro? The signs were there for all to see, yet I blindly plowed ahead in my eagerness to get the job done that I've failed to see what was happening right under my nose."

Gibbs leaned back on the seat, rubbing open palms over his knees as he frowned at the older man, "You couldn't have known. We all missed it. And he could have told us too, but he didn't."

"Because he dismissed it as unimportant," says Ducky with vehemence, shaking his fists in the air.

"The doctors?"

"They've said that they suspect of some sort of allergy, combined with his current extremely low resistance which made him easy pray for a very vicious lung infection. The doctors are treating it with antibiotics now, but they are designed to treat only the symptoms, not the causes. Until they figure out what's causing the allergy in the first place, he will be vulnerable to another respiratory crisis."

"And they have no idea what's causing that?"

"No. Apparently, he has been admitted to the E.R. before, and they've told me that they've just contacted his own doctor who has been investigating his symptoms. Yet they're at loss of what to do. They can treat him now, lower his fever, clear the infection. But if he is exposed to whatever allergen which is causing all this trouble, he could have another episode like the one we've witnessed today."


	6. Diagnostics

a/n: Sorry it took me so LONG to update this story. My muse was snoring away on this zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

But she's back and we're almost done.

* * *

**_Chapter 6: Diagnostics_**

_Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil - **Aristotle**_

The beeping and the scent of antiseptics was what tipped me off that I wasn't in Kansas anymore. I blinked tiredly my eyes, not surprised to feel the irritation of an IV line attached to my hand or the nasal canula bringing me much needed oxygen to my lungs. I tried to swallow but it only irritated further my parched throat, causing me to start a fit of coughing that I could not control.

I felt impotent tears gathering in my eyes as my lungs burned in the effort of absorbing air, at the same time that my throat felt like a lit torch had been shoved down it. I vaguely feel strong arms helping my torso up so I can cough better, while a hand soothingly ran in circles over my back, trying to physically comfort me through the respiratory crisis.

I blinked through my tears and one of my hands gripped faintly one of the arms holding me. I lifted my eyes and was surprised to find the lined face with piercing blue eyes, which immediately intensified my distress, making me cough even harder.

"A.."cough "gent" cough... cough... more coughing... "Gibbs, what...?" At that moment, I could barely breathe so I simply closed my eyes and coughed until the burning became a blaze in my chest.

"Relax Palmer, I've just called the nurse, they will be here shortly."

He had barely finished speaking and two nurses marched into the room and ran to me, doing what they do best, poking and prodding and turning me to my side and giving me something to sooth my parched throat.

Gibbs took a step back and simply watched as I was made pincushion, had blood drawn etc etc.

"How are we feeling today, Mr. Palmer?" The oldest nurse, a chubby black lady with kind eyes, who after fixing my pillows, affectionately moved my bangles out of my forehead just as a pretext to check my temperature.

"You are …" coughing again, darn. "peachy. I feel like... something the cat dragged out of the bag."

"Don't worry," The other nurse, a woman in her forties with pale skin, brown hair and brown eyes, changed my IV bag and ensured everything was in place. "Dr. Ryan has already spoken to your personal physician and they are coming soon to talk to you."

"What?"

Ignoring my confusion, both nurses finished what they had to do and marched out of the room, not without giving a smile to Gibbs who responded with his usual smirk.

As soon the door shut behind them, I closed my eyes, eager to organize my thoughts and also desperate to ignore the burning gaze of the Agent with me.

I heard the footsteps coming closer to my bed, as well as the noise of a chair being dragged until it was placed right on my beside. I was terrified of opening my eyes, as I had no idea what to say or why should I say something to the agent in the room with me.

"Are you going to ignore me, Palmer?"

"Ah.. no sir. I mean... no Agent Gibbs. I'm fine now." I gulped as I opened my eyes, turning my head in order to look at him.

His blue gaze was fixed on my face, checking everything in it. There was absolutely no expression on his face, as he kept studying me as a curious (and soon to be dead) bug under a microscope.

"How long has this been going on, Palmer?"

"What? Ah..." I felt flushed, not only by the light fever I'm sure running but also the heat of his gaze.

"Dr. Gruber, the doctor you've been consulting on your own without telling anyone, has told Ducky that this is not the first time you've been hospitalized with a respiratory crisis. This is actually the third time you were admitted in the last two months alone. How long did you think you could hide this from us?"

"I wasn't hiding... I was..."

"What if you had a episode like that when you were on a scene or, God forbid, alone in your apartment?"

"Ah..."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"Ah..."

"Why didn't you come to me?"

"But you are not my boss." I was able to say in a rush.

Gibbs' glare became more ablaze, but I kept going on.

"I was dealing with it. I was taking my medicines and doing the exercises they told me to do and being very very careful in everything I eat."

"Dammit, you stopped breathing, Palmer. You. Stopped. Breathing. Have you even considered how Ducky would feel once he found out you are hiding this from him?"

"Ah..."

Gibbs simply glared at me, silently demanding an answer that I wasn't really ready to give. I don't know why I thought it would be better to hide my condition from the team, but I really thought that it didn't matter as long as I could keep doing my job.

Apparently, I was wrong.

"So?"

"I didn't think it was important."

"Palmer!"

I lifted a hand, silently asking him to listen to me.

"As long as I could keep doing my job, I thought it would be fine. I mean, up until now it was a little cough and a little fever. It's probably a symptom of my diabetes anyway."

"Palmer, it's not a little cough." Gibbs glared seriously, trying to infer the seriousness of the situation at hand to me. "We can't have you in the field if you suddenly simply can't breathe anymore. It won't do. I've spoken to Director Vance, you're on medical leave until you have this sorted out."

"But..."

"No buts. That's an order."

I muttered my agreement at the same time the door burst open and Dr. Mallard entered flanked by Dr. Gruber. Tony Ziva and McGee entered right behind them, making a small circle around my bed. I felt very low when I read all the worry in their faces.

"Mr. Palmer, I'm glad to see you are awake." Dr. Gruber said and went immediately to my chart, making some notes on it while Dr. Mallard went to my bedside and took my right hand, the one without an IV, in his own.

"You gave me quite a scare, young man." His eyes searched my face carefully and the sadness and worry in his voice made me feel like the lowest man on the face of the world.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Mallard. I really thought I was getting better. It was just a cough."

"It wasn't just a cough. You have developed initial stages of pneumonia for Christ's sake." Ducky's worry became irritation, but he still held gently my hand in his.

"Unfortunately, the pneumonia is just another symptom, not the main concern." Dr. Gruber said as he put the chart back to its place. "Your latest dive to the ground made me think about something and with your medical history it might be a plausible prognostic."

"But you've said that it wasn't an allergy. You've already checked my apartment twice and found nothing that could explain my coughing."

"Or the dizziness, hair and weight loss and tremors you've mentioned before." Dr. Gruber completed, just to cause the team to look at me as if I'm a little bug. Again.

"Man, why haven't you said anything before?" Tony muttered, which made me feel even worse.

"I didn't want to be a bother." I muttered, my eyes firmly set to Dr. Mallard's firm grip in my hands.

"You will never be a bother, my lad." Ducky said, before turning to Dr. Gruber. "What can you tell us?"

"After a series of misdiagnosis over the last months I'm fairly sure that I'm closer to the truth." Dr. Gruber took his glasses and cleaned it with a white handkerchief, a gesture I've had observed several times during our meetings.

"Oh, so..."

"I believe we're seeing a very advanced case of zinc deficiency, coupled with a severe respiratory allergic reaction to some allergen that remains unknown."

"What?" I could barely hide my surprise.

"Is that serious, Doctor?" Ziva was holding her right hand with her left one, trying not to fidget nervously.

"Not if caught and treated early. You see, what caused us such grief was that there are no specific tests to measure Zinc in the human body and the lack of said element is very detrimental for the overall health of the individual."

"But couldn't you have seen the symptoms and figured out the diagnosis?" That was the first question coming out of McGee so I was quite happy he was there for me as well.

"No, he couldn't." I've said, diving deeper on my pillows and staring straight a head, flipping through my medical books in my head looking for the information I knew on Zinc deficiency. "My diabetes could explain or mask the symptoms, while it actually was just increasing the risk of it. Zinc is a vital element for several body processes, but mostly for keeping a healthy immune system. It prevents and minimizes the effects of the common cold or..."

I glanced to Dr. Gruber, who nodded in agreement and completed "... or upper respiratory infection. Thus we have your pneumonia and your severe allergic reaction. Your immune system simply couldn't cope with a common cold; when faced with the perspective of fighting a severe allergy, it simply crashed."

"But what about the other symptoms?" Gibbs asked.

"Yeah, the weight loss? The hair? The skin?" Tony folded his arms, looking from one doctor to the other, before his eyes landed on me again.

"Actually," Ducky squeezed my hand and turned to the agent, smiling briefly, " It all fits. Some of his symptoms could easily be overlooked or attributed to a series of other possible diagnostics or conditions but when put together, it suggests that lack of Zinc is a major player here."

"But I'm very careful with my food intake. How could that have happened to me?" I asked, closing my eyes and feeling suddenly very tired.

"Actually, your diabetes could simply have triggered it as it can affect Zinc absorption. There was no way you could have known." Dr. Gruber said apologetically.

"So how do we treat it?" Gibbs, as always, went straight to the point.

"We're already are treating it. His IV is giving him some vitamins to fight the lung infection and also one of our nurses is going to bring you some Zinc tablets. We're going to monitor you for a few days and keep checking you daily until this is sorted out." Dr. Gruber answered the team leader, who smirked at me.

"So I'll be okay?"

"Just wait and see."


	7. Simple solutions

**_Epilogue: Simple solutions_**

_When the solution is simple, God is answering. - **Albert Einstein**_

It was my pillow.

It was my freaking goose feather pillow.

The same one I would lay my head on every single night to sleep and drool like an idiot while my mind was assaulted with the images of the valiant soldiers that at some time went through our autopsy tables. My mom gave it to me eight years ago and I kept it just for the sentimental value of it, despite having moved out a couple of years back.

Dr. Gruber sent two doctors to "investigate" my apartment. They somehow are specialized in figuring out medical 'mysteries' like the source of my mysterious allergic reaction.

They've tested every inch of my flat and after looking around for a few hours, they've pierced some facts together.

1. My worst coughing fits always happened at night, no reaction during the days. So it couldn't be any kind of work related contaminant, as the coughing would happen during the day if that was the case.

2. It only happened after I went to bed.

3. If I slept anywhere else - the couch perhaps - no coughing fit happened.

Therefore, the allergen factor must be somewhere on the bed I sleep on. After some samples collected and tests, the culprit was found and evicted from my apartment.

As I was admitted for treatment of the mild pneumonia and severe zinc deficiency symptoms, I waited anxiously to hear what was the verdict.

Abby was almost gleeful to talk with those in the lab responsible for the tests, asking about spores, microorganisms and bacteria in such terms that made me wonder about how her mind must be organized to keep all that information available in a moments notice.

I was very touched with the care the team showed to me. It was something completely unexpected, as it made me see that I've suffered these last months in vain. I could have confided in them and they would have supported me, all the way to recovery.

But only if I gave them the chance.

Ziva would bring me some healthy cakes she had baked herself and feed me, all the while telling me about how she had threatened Tony with her deadly paperclips due to some stupid movie quote he had said in an inappropriate time.

Tim brought me some extremely rare comic books out of his collection, letting me read the classics while I was on forced bed rest. And by classics I mean Spiderman number one, Superman one, two and three, and the classic Death of Superman.

I don't care what Tony might say, but God bless Tim's geek heart. He knows how to cheer up a man.

Tony brought me a laptop and the Back to the Future trilogy. We kept poking holes at the storyline and imagining what would happen if the same thing happened to one of us... or maybe all of us. We laughed as we imagined ex-wife number three meeting ex-wife number one still married to Gibbs and the fight to the death that it would ensue. Tony is a great guy when he isn't being a pain in the ass.

Ducky was worried about me, venting his anger before deflating and acting like a concerned parent showing a care that for a long time I felt unworthy to receive due to the way I've treated him lately.

But my greatest surprise came out of Agent Gibbs, who after finishing the workday would drop by for an hour or two just to chat - or not - checking how my general state was. Two days into my stay in the hospital, he took a chair and sat beside my bed while I attacked some green jello, trying to avoid his piercing eyes.

"Palmer..."

"Yes Sir... I mean, Agent Gibbs."

"Just Gibbs."

"..."

"Don't let that happen again. Ever."

I nodded, smiled shyly at him before attacking my jello again.

Life is good. We are just blind to its blessings sometimes.

- THE END -


End file.
